The Saugus Iron Works at Lynn, Mass. : addresses at the presentation to the city of Lynn of the first casting made in America

r^

ciV9 UH^^ \3 .Si.

^

^oy>(X

T.

V.\we'\Ml\qi\\ \uU\c. V.\V>Aa.v^

3^

Bo&ton Public Library

Do not write in this book or mark it with pen or
pencil. Penalties for so doing are imposed by the
Revised Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

This book teas issued to the borrower on the date
last stamped below.

\

-

^

FORM NO. 609: l,3.A9: ZOOM

THE S AUG US IRON WORKS

AT

LYNN. MASS

ADDRESSES

At the Presentation to the City of Lynn of the
First Casting Made in America.

BY —

C. J. H. WOODBURY, of Lynn.

JOHN E. HUDSON, of Boston.

ACCEPTANCE BY

Hon. ELIHU B. HAYES, Ma.yor of Lynn.

Novemher 21, 1892.

L Y N N , M A S S . :

Pkkss of Thus. P. Nichols,

1892.

-1.^^"

THE SAUGUS IRON WORKS

AT

LYNN, MASS

ADDRESSES

At the Presentation to the Gily of Lynn of the
First Casting Made in America.

BY —

C. J. H. WOODBURY, of Lynn.

JOHN E. HUDSON, of Boston.

ACCEPTANCE BY

Hon. ELIHU B. HAYES, Ma.yor of Lynn.
November 21, 1892.

LYNN, M A S S . :

Press of Thos. P. Nichols,

1892

•^GST(

C^^su^l 2»

V-Cv/l<..wi.,ViXa^ (/!<xu^-ic^ (ljJo\^-

"ivu^ «^ f^^P

^

^^^c

L!S/?^^^

^.^)^

a-

THE SAUGUS IRON WORKS AT LYNN.

Address by C. J. H. WOODBURY, of Lynn.

Mr. Mayor :

A few months ago I learned that Messrs. Arthur and
Llewellyn Lewis, the owners of the kettle well known as being
the first casting made at the Saugus Iron Works, were seriously
considering the acceptance of one of several offers recently made
for its purchase ; and as it appeared to me that this article, which
was the precursor of the vast iron industry in America, should
be kept at Lynn, where it properly belonged as a relic most
closely affiliated with the early history of our town, I at once
purchased the kettle.

Some of the citizens to whom the facts were submitted at a
later day joined in the expenses involved in the purchase and
mounting of the kettle in a suitable case for its presentation to
the city ; but before the whole affair was consummated, John E.
Hudson, Esq., now a resident of Boston, but born in Lynn, and
for many years a resident of this city, claimed the privilege of
making the gift to his birthplace.

His interest in the matter was a deep one, as he is a direct
descendant of Thomas Hudson, the owner of the site upon which
the Saugus Iron Works were built, and his request was conceded
by the original subscribers, who now offer the case in which the
kettle is placed for safe preservation.

The case is presented by Messrs. Charles H. Aborn, George
E. Barnard, Hon. Francis W. Breed, Hon. William A. Clark,
Jr., Charles A. Coffin, Alfred Cross, Benjamin W. Currier,
B. V. French, William G. S. Keene, Patrick Lennox, John T.
Moulton, William H. Niles, E. Wilbur Rice, Jr., Joseph N.

(4)

Smith, Benjamin F. Spinney, Henry B. Sprague, JosejDh F.
Swain, David H. Sweetser, Henry F. Tapley, Charles B.
Tebbetts, Prof. Elihu Thomson, Col. Roland G. Usher, C. J.
H. Woodbury, John P. Woodbury and Mark J. Worthley.

As the kettle is an example of the state of the art of iron found-
ing in 1643, so the tablet, forming the rear of the case, is also
typical of the skill of American foundrymen in 1893. It is as it
came from the mould at the foundry of the Magee Furnace Com-
pany, at Chelsea, untouched by tools, and has been treated by
the Bower-Barff process, converting the surface into the mag-
netic oxide of iron to prevent corrosion.

In designing this tablet, I introduced some original features,
particularly in the ground-work of the face, of which the pattern
was woven bamboo, and the back is in like manner an impres-
sion of plaited straw, instead of the tooled surfaces, which are
used for similar tablets. It forms the back of a glass case, in the
middle of which the kettle is hung from a small crane project-
ing diagonally from one side of the tablet.

The kettle weighs two pounds and four ounces, and holds
nearly a quart.

The tablet bears the following inscription :

The First Casting made

IN .America.

Saugus Ikon Works

1642.

Presented to the City of Lynn

BY

John E. Hudson,
a descendant of
Thomas Hudson,

THE owner of the SITE OF THE

Iron Works, to whom the first

CASTING was given.

This case presented by

CITIZENS OF Lynn.

1892.

It may be very naturally asked what is the evidence warranting
the presumption that this kettle is as claimed, the first casting
made at the Saugus Iron Works.

(5)

It is true that this article lacks the stamp and attested I'ecord of
many witnesses, but like Plymouth Rock, and many other im-
portant relics of American history, it depends in part upon tradi-
tion in a generation devoid of sentiment or personal interest,
which might introduce possible elements of error.

Tradition has preserved for the world much of its history,
essential principles of law, and even vital points in both Jewish
and Christian religion.

The design of the kettle is that of a type used in the earliest
colonial days, but in its physical characteristics it bears evidence
of being made of iron cast directly from the ore as reduced in
a blast furnace, and not from pig iron remelted in a reverba-
tory or a cupola furnace ; and there is no evidence or reason to
believe that there was either of these furnaces at the Saugus Iron
Works.

Thomas Hudson owned sixty acres of land on the westerly
bank of the Saugus River, at the present sites of Scott's and of
Pranker's mills, and he sold this land to the Companv of Under-
takers for the Iron Works. He claimed in consideration the first
article made at the works, and although not given to idealisms,
this kettle was kept by him and his descendants in the male line
for over a century, when it passed in the fourth generation to
Mary (Hudson) Lewis, who gave it to her daughter, Mary
Lewis, and she in turn gave it to her nephews, Arthur and
Llewellyn Lewis, from whom the purchase was made.

These two brothers well remember the story of the kettle as
told by their grandmother, who prized this kettle as an heir-
loom, whose history had, in a like manner, been related to her
by her grandparents.

The first published record of this kettle is contained under date
of 1642, in the History of Lynn, by Alonzo Lewis, 1S44, P- ^^2.
The same is included in Lewis' and Newhall's History of Lynn
(1890), page 208, and is referred to in every history treating of
the Saugus Iron Works. The Standard History of Essex County,
C. F. Jewett (1S7S), of which the chapters upon Lynn were
prepared by the late. Cyrus Mason Tracy, contains (page 246) a
description of this kettle ; and I have in my ppssesiion a manu-
script written by Mr, Tracy in 1881, in which that able antiquary

(6)

eloquently referred to it as " the humble prototype of the im-
mense iron industry that now extends over our land."

Further references on this subject may be made to Vol. I, page
408, of the History of Essex County, Massachusetts (J. W.
Lewis, Philadelphia, 188S), in which the chapters on Saugus
were written by Wilbur F. Newhall, Esq.

The Saugus Iron Works were such an important factor in the
inception and early development of American industries that
their early history merits due consideration. This was not the
first attempt at iron smelting, but the first success.

The expectancy for mineral wealth was universal among the
early explorers of America. Every royal charter, patent, grant
or commission contained exact provisions for the division of
precious and base metals, in which the privy purse was to share
largely. The avaricious Spaniards expected gold, and abased
Columbus because he had not found it in fabulous plenty. The
later Spanish explorers pillaged enough gold in Mexico and
Peru to trample out the Aztec civilization, and in turn ruin
themselves.

The outline of the western Atlantic littoral had not been fully
established before Spanish romancers pictured the unknown
lands with strange peoples, who submissively yielded to the con-
querors, and bestowed upon them a plethora of precious metals.

The thrifty English were not blind to the attraction of mineral
wealth, and sought the less alluring but more valuable iron, al-
though that metal was unknown to the Indians, save in a few
instances recently discovered by Prof. F. W. Putnam, where the
mound-builders fashioned meteoric iron into ornaments or irn-
plements. (Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum,
Cambridge, Vol. III., pages 172, 202, 407, 425).

The earliest reference to iron ore in America is contained in
the History of the Second Expedition to Virginia, by Thomas
Harriot, in 1586, wherein he says in reference to Roanoke
Island: "Wee founde neere the water side the ground to be
rockie which by the trial of a mineral man was founde to hold,
iron richly. It is found in manie places of the country else."
The hostility of the natives was so intense that the Colonists soon
returned to England without developing the mines.

(7)

The Jamestown Colony mined and sent iron ore to England
as early as i6oS (VV. F. Durfee, American Industries Since Col-
umbus, page 146). In 1623, they built iron works at Falling
Creek, a tributary of the James River, about seventy-six miles
from Jamestown, for the purpose of reducing bog iron ore.
The works had approached completion, when the Indians at-
tacked the settlement, killing three hundred and fifty persons and
burning the buildings, March 33, 1633. Thus the enterprise, for
which skilled men had been especially sent to the Jamestown
Colony from England, was abandoned. (History of the Iron
Manufacture in all Ages, page 104, James M. Swank, Philadel-
phia, 1893.)

The Massachusetts Bay Company, at a meeting in London,
March 3, 163S, considered the advisability of sending Malbon to
New England to prospect for iron ore, and he was at Salem in
1629, but it is not known that he ever reported any discoveries.

The bog iron deposits in the upper Saugus meadows were
discovered by Thomas Dexter, one of the Colonists, and he in-
formed his fellow-townsman. Captain Robert Bridges, who went
to London and formed the Company of the Undertakers for the
Iron Works, which was started under the management of these
two men, with Joseph Jenks, one of the best workmen of the
day, as master mechanic.

Captain Robert Bridges was one of the leading men of the
settlement, having been entrusted with diplomatic offices on the
part of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, and of whom it was
said by Nathan M. Hawkes, "No man who lacked suavity and
winning social manners could have persuaded calculating London
merchants to have ventured their dearly loved funds in an iron
works experiment across the Atlantic in a savage and unknown
land." (Magazine of American History, Vol. XXV, page 150.)

The site of the iron works was well selected, being situated at
the head of navigation, by the ford in the highway from Boston
to Salem, at a water-power, and near to the bog iron ore depos-
its, whose exact location is unknown, save that they were in
Adam Hawkes' meadows. The whole iron works tract probably
covered three thousand acres ; all of which was situated in that
portion of the town of Lynn known by its original name of

(8)

Saugus, which it resumed as a legal matter when it was set off
from Lynn in 1815. The whole territory now including Lynn
and its five surrounding towns, was at the first called Saugus,
but the name was changed to Lynn by act of the General Court,
November 15, 1637, yet various portions, as Saugus, Swamp-
scott, and Nahant, always retained these local names.

The General Court granted them at various times immunity
from import or export duties, and from taxation, and other priv-
ileges. I believe that the act of October 14, 1645, is the earliest
instance of legislation upon the principles of protection to man-
ufacturers, which has been such an important feature in the de-
velopment of American industries. The act is a long document,
but the following extracts are of especial interest.

"5. * * They shall have free liberty to transport the same
(their iron) by shipping to other parts or places of the world,
and to make sale thereof. * * * Provided they sell it not to
any person or state in actual hostility with us.

"7. It is also granted that the undertakers and adventurers,
together with their agents, servants, and assigns, shall be and are
hereby free from taxes, assessments, contributions and other
public charges whatsoever, for so much of their stock and goods
as may be employed in and about the said Iron Works, for and
during the period of twenty-one years yet to come from the
date of these presents."

There is not any detailed description of the works and the
exact methods employed, but there is much light thrown upon
these matters in the voluminous records of continual legislation
and litigation, which took place during the forty-six years that the
works were in operation.

The works contained a blast furnace, in which bog iron ore
was reduced by means of charcoal, using as a flux lime, which
in the earliest days of the works was obtained from the oyster
shells, which then abounded on the coast of Massachusetts Bay.
Cannon were also melted at this foundry, far in advance of the
time when swords were to be beaten into plough-shares, or
spears into pruning-hooks.

The iron from the blast furnace was run into straight trenches
in the sand, and thereby cast into long triangular bars called

(9)

" sowe iron," which were converted into wrought iron and steel.
Castings were made directly from the metal flowing from the
blast furnace into a pool, whence it was dipped by crucibles and
poured into the moulds. The cupola furnace was not invented
until 1790.

The manufacture of wrought iron and steel must have been
entered upon contemporaneously with that of cast iron, as John
Endicott, of Salem, the first Governor of Massachusetts Bay,
wrote to Governor John Winthrop, at Boston, December i, 1642 :
" I wish to hear much of your son's iron and steel;" the son
being John Winthrop, Jr., who was interested in the Saugus
Iron Works.

The wrought iron and steel were made in a blomary, which
may be described as a charcoal fire four feet thick in a black-
smith's forge. The end of a bar of sow iron was plunged into
the fire, and in time a pasty mass of wrought iron would settle
to the bottom. Other portions of the bar would be converted
into steel when the process stopped at the intermediary stage be-
tween cast and wrought iron. This process of steel-making is
still used throughout the Oriental nations, and also in the moun-
tainous region south of the Ohio River.

The iron works also included a machine shop, in which the
first fire engines made in America were built for the Town of
Boston, in accordance with a vote of the town meeting, March
I, 1654, that '' The select (men) have power and liberty to agree
with Joseph Jynks for Ingins to convey water in case of fire, if
they see cause so to do." (Brayley, History Boston Fire De-
partment, 18S9, page 7.)

Although the Iron Works were in operation very soon after
building was commenced, yet additions were made during a
number of years. In 1645, an order of the General Court shows
that the works had " some tons of sowe iron cast and some others
in readiness for the forge," and letters of Governor Winthrop in
August and September, 164S, state that the furnace produced
seven to eight tons per week. The principal product was bar
iron "as good as the Spanish," costing £20 per ton, also axes
and agricultural implements.

When Governor John Endicott began the Oak Tree and Pine

(10)

Tree coinage in 1652, the dies were made by Joseph Jenks at the
Saugus Iron Works. (Early Coins of America, S. S. Crosby,
Boston, 1875, p. 79.)

It is stated by Judge James R. Newhall that the designs were
made by Elizabeth, the wife of Joseph Jenks, the master
mechanic. (Liii, 18S0, p. 78.) This coinage, bearing the stamp
" Massachvsetts State " without any reference to the throne, was
probably the first fundamental act of inilependence to the Mother
Country. The colonists were driven to such a course by the
lack of money, as exchanges were for the most part carried on in
barter with bullets and wampum serving for small coin.

Joseph Jenks also invented a sawmill, which received a patent
for fourteen years from the General Court on June 10, 1646, being
the first patent granted in America, and also a water engine for
mills, which was undoubtedly a form of water wheel and not the
hydraulic engine which that term would now signify.

He also invented the modern American scythe, long and nar-
row and stiffened by a ridge along the back, a marked improve-
ment "for the more speedie cutting of grasse " over the broad
short bushwack scythe made from a thin plate of steel, and richly
deserved the patent for seven years which was granted by the
General Court, May 33, 1655.

In 1667 he petitioned the General Court relative to a wire
manufactory ; and May 15, 1672, his petition for authority to coin
money was refused.

The litigation to which the Iron Works were subjected in-
creased and became oppressive. It appears as if the impulse to
" sue the corporation " was instinctive among the townspeople.
The corporation, its managers, and its workmen were proceeded
against under every conceivable excuse. The boundaries of
worthless land, poor crops on sterile soil, unrestrained court-
ships, speaking lightly of the Governor, reproachfully of the
Church and harshly of the King, were all subjects of long con-
tinued and bitter litigation.

Land was sold to the corporation and afterwards further
damages claimed. Dexter brought suit because the alewives did
not come into his net below the dam as of yore ; and Hawkes sued
because the water rose too high above the dam. The town sued

(11)

the corporation for pew rents in a meeting-house several miles
distant, and notwithstanding the immunity in the act of October
14, 1645, already quoted in part, won the case. The pews could
not have been worn much for the courts took action against the
managers for not attending public worship.

The works are not known to have been in operation after 168S,
when the tract had din.inished to six hundred acres and passed
into individual ownership. If the supply of bog iron ore had
been sufficient for the works, they would undoubtedly have been
continued the same as other enterprises of that day in various
parts of New England.

. The immediate return to those engaged in the enterprise is now
of little moment, but the results to the whole Colony of an estab-
lishment which attracted, developed and then scattered a body
of skilled mechanics were of great importance and no doubt may
have been an essential factor in rearing many prominent industries.

The grass-covered mounds of ashes and dross along the banks
of the Saugus River are the only vestige of those busy works,
and serve as an uninscribed monument to the mechanical pio-
neers of America.

ADDRESS

By JOHN E. HUDSON, of Boston.

Mr. Mayor :

Mr. Woodbury has told us so fully the history of
the Iron Works at Saugus, the evidences of the genuineness of
this kettle as the first casting there made, and the circumstances
which have brought us together, that there is, I think, nothing
to be added by me beyond the formal act of transferring the title
to the city.

As to my part in the matter, perhaps I may say that I was
engaged in some inquiries into matters relating to Thomas Hud-
son, and in the course of them was on the track of this kettle
and endeavoring to buy it — my ofler, I do n't doubt, was one of
the offers to which Mr. Woodbury refers — and in this way I came
to know what Mr. Woodbury and his associates had in hand. I
need not say that I appreciate the courtesy shown in yielding to
my suggestion that there was a certain fitness in the gift coming
from a descendant of the original owner, and in allowing me to
pay for and present the kettle to the city.

It remains, then, only to sum up and say that the relic is one
which should be preserved ; that it must be unique in its kind as
the first fruits of an industry which has grown to such vast pro-
portions, and that its proper resting place is in the City Hall of
the town within the borders of which the works were established
and the casting was made ; and trusting that your Honor agrees
with me in these views, I beg to offer the kettle to the city for its
acceptance.

If one might express a hope, it would be that the city's accept-
ance of this will encourage the bringing together of such other

(14)

mementos of that early time as may still be extant. If whatever
there is of this kind could be brought into view ; if examples of
furniture as illustrative of the habits of the time could be collect-
ed ; if diaries, if such exist, could see the light, and old accounts
and old papers could be copied ; much, I think, might be done
towards gathering the material for a history of that early time
before it should be altogether lost. The city would, I don't
doubt, furnish a proper place for the care of such things. Might
it be hoped that the city would see its way to printing the early
volumes of records which still remain.'' as an example and a
stimulus to collecting, before it is too late, all that can now be
collected that relates to the early settlement. All this would make
a proper history of Lynn possible, and she should have a better
history than has yet appeared. I think the story is worth telling
in a better way than it has ever yet been told.
I beg your acceptance of the kettle.

Address of Acceptance,

By Hon. ELIHU B. HAYES, Mayor of Lynn.

Gentlemen :

It is well to pause in the rush and strife of our
busy lives to consider matters like these, which have been called to
our attention to-night, and reflect upon what we owe to the sturdy
men who planted new industries and a new form of government
on these sterile shores. It is fitting, too, that we should consider
anew the starting of the first Iron Industry in America at a time
when we are about to open the largest iron foundry in New
England near by the site of the works where this kettle was
cast. I have been much interested in the historical facts pre-
sented by Mr. Woodbury. These facts call to our minds in a
forcible manner the debt we owe to those sturdy pioneers whose
descendants we are, and the fruits of whose industry and intelli-
gence we enjoy. We are coming more and more to realize the
debt we owe them. They not only inaugurated a form of govern-
ment which enabled us to grow up the most prosperous people
on the earth, but the influence of the idea first tested by them
has influenced, elevated and humanized every government under
which civilized men live.

I was impressed also by the suggestion of Mr. Hudson, that
it is well to preserve such relics as this in public places, that the
attention of the young people just coming on the stage of action
may be called to the beginning of our industries. There is no
better work that can be done in a public way than to furnish the
people in our communities with steady and profitable employ-
ment. As these early people have worked and sacrificed to

<

inaugurate and establish industries, so should we use our best

(10)

endeavors in a public and private way to encourage business, to
promote industrial organizations, and encourage all in their efforts
to furnish profitable employment.

I have enjoyed much the exercises of this occasion, and for
myself and for the people of the city I thank the gentlemen who
have by their efforts and generous donations preserved this relic
of the industrial past for the encouragement and instruction of
this and coming generations. It will gain an added interest as
time goes on.

Boston Public Library
Centnd Library, Copley Square

Division of
Reference and Research Services

The Date Due Card in the pocket indi-
cates the date on or before which this
book should be returned to the Library.

Please do not remove cards from this
pocket. -

\

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 05268 380 0